Att tänka kritiskt? : en studie om lärande, PBL och IT i ingenjörsutbildningen

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to increase our understanding of the learning environment being offered to engineering undergraduates in a technical university or institute of technology, using the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) as a study case. The factual basis of the empirical study has been compiled from questionnaires, interviews and participants' observations. During the years 1998-2000, some 503 engineering undergraduates participated in the questionnaire component, and 27 engineering undergraduates and six lecturers participated in the interview part of the study.This study shows that critical thinking is more than just a fence-sitting approach to what one hears or reads. According to the respondents, critical thinking is based on understanding, which is a prerequisite for learning.Engineering undergraduates find themselves in a learning environment that is perceived in different ways, and try to adapt themselves to it to varying degrees. They describe a range of different approaches and strategies for learning.The study demonstrates that the learning environment at KTH provides engineering undergraduates with suitable conditions for independent and critical judgement. Regardless of the learning environment itself, the engineering undergraduates point out a number of factors that can encourage or discourage critical thinking. The way in which an individual engineering undergraduate perceives the challenges provided by these learning environments and how they react to them, differs from one individual to another.It is evident from the study that most of them see that their studies at KTH do sometimes encourage critical thinking. PBL can encourage critical thinking, but where there are shortcomings in the learning environment, then PBL can also inhibit critical thinking. The study also shows that critical thinking is not facilitated by IT. In pressing situations it is easier to abstain from IT than to take the time to sit down and really "get into" a technology that is perceived as being difficult to handle and unreliable.